Vikings offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur knows his future may lie beyond Minnesota.
But because he’s a football coach, he’s compartmentalizing, and trying to keep all his attention on Sunday’s divisional round game against the Saints.
Via the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Shurmur said he “enjoyed” his head coaching interviews with the Bears, Lions, Cardinals and Giants, but that he was now back to work.
“I think we as coaches, our whole lives have learned how to stay in the moment,” Shurmur said. “Again, you do one thing and then you move onto the next. I really enjoyed the time that I spent with those teams. But I got quickly back into preparing for the Saints. Fortunately, this is a team that we’ve played before. So [it has] the feel of kind of like a division game.”
The Bears have since moved on and hired former Chiefs offensive coordinator Matt Nagy, but Shurmur has been mentioned as a favorite for the Cardinals job, and his relationship with soon-to-be free agent quarterback can’t hurt.
Asked whether he had talked contract with any of the teams, Shurmur said: “There’s another time to talk about all that stuff.”
“Each situation is different,” Shurmur said. “Every team right now that is not playing in the playoffs has quickly turned their focus to how am I going to improve my team. These are teams that are looking for a head coach. So they’ve got that as part of their process. They were very easy conversations in terms of what your philosophy might be. But I approached all of them with the same mind-set and then quickly put it on the back burner.”
He has his hands full this weekend, with a Saints defense that has suddenly become competent, which makes it easier to put his future employment on hold for a few days.